The present invention is generally related to virtually tapping transmit and receive data links utilized for signaling servers and, more specifically to a context controlled data tap utilizing parallel logic for integrated link monitoring.
Currently, interactively coupling signaling servers to data capture systems requires a multitude of passive taps to monitor message traffic level 2 information. Level 2 information includes components such as sequencing and error checking. An Integrated Link Monitor (ILM) can provide interactive coupling of the signaling server to a data capture system for monitoring message traffic. The signaling server can be of the Signaling System #7 (SS7) type such as the Alcatel Signaling Server Global (SSG) system. Integrated link monitor coupling of the signal server to the data capture system replaces the multitude of passive taps on each of the signaling server links that were previously used to accomplish this purpose. The information previously received by means of the passive taps is now provided by a series of Ethernet connections. Current integrated link monitoring functions that have been implemented in hardware performs the level 2 functions but require the host processor utilization to perform those functions. The use of the host processor to perform level 2 functions adds significant load to the host processor and reduces its availability to perform distributed application services.
Therefore, what is needed is parallel logic to virtually tap the signaling server message traffic to extract level 2 information and perform level 2 functions. More specifically, parallel logic is needed to perform a virtual tap of context-controlled transmit and receive data links to extract level 2 information and perform the level 2 functions. The level 2 functionality is implemented by means of the integrated link monitor which aligns signal units based on context and copies those signal units to the Direct Memory Access (DMA) function which assembles the integrated link monitor data packet bundles in host memory.